


Out of Time

by AnnieforSimonsflower



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Crossover, Hurt/Comfort, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-War, The Quidditch Pitch: Television, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-18
Updated: 2009-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-27 20:05:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieforSimonsflower/pseuds/AnnieforSimonsflower
Summary: Halloween and other holidays have mixed associations for the Doctor and his travelling companions.  [Crossover with Doctor Who and Torchwood]





	Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story is archived on behalf of Simons_flower, who passed away in 2009, by her designated archivist.
> 
>  **Author's notes:**      The bunnies, they are vicious and attack without warning.  They snack on my brain in the middle of the night and leave things like this behind.  I blame it all on Captain Jack.  
>       Thanks to [](http://madam-minnie.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://madam-minnie.livejournal.com/)**madam_minnie** for the once-over.

** Out of Time **

My former self is at the bar, all leather and darkness, brooding as I watch a younger Jack and Rose dance. This is going to get confusing. I can't keep calling myself "me" in my head. I would normally refer to the other me as John, as in John Smith, my sometime alias, but our recent encounter with John Hart -- again -- has turned me off that name for some time. I do hope Harry can finally talk some sense into Jack about that man. I think I'll call my former self Nigel to reduce confusion.

_Nigel_ is brooding at the bar thinking he has to hold himself apart from his companions. I want to shake him, to tell him that what Jack and Rose want more than anything tonight is for some of his reserve to melt and for him to take them into his bed.

He would be shocked to know they've discussed it frankly between them. He has no idea that they've discussed the possibility he might relent and take one but not the other of them to bed, or that he might push the two of them together, all under the guise of it being for their own good. I know I was speechless when Jack told me.

I follow Nigel's eyes and watch Rose writhe against Jack to the beat of the music, both of them looking impossibly young.

I can't tear my own eyes away from them until I sense a disturbance behind me, the sort of disturbance only associated with my traveling companions. Were Rose here rather than there, she would tease me for my Jedi sense, I'm certain, but that's not it at all. Though I've become used to it and able to manage my reaction, both my traveling companions feel _wrong_ to me. They are static points in time and one of my sole purposes is to manage the continual flow of time. One of the few advantages of being the last Time Lord is that I don't have to take them to Gallifrey for the Powers That Be to find a way to kill two men that can't be killed.

"We shouldn't have come," an American-accented voice says in my ear, using the few inches difference in our height to hover over me.

I sigh. In the timeline of Jack and Nigel, the events of the Game Station are only a few days in the future.

"I know, Jack," I reply, "but it's Halloween."

Jack snorts a laugh and I hear a chair scrape against the floor. "For being over eleven hundred years old, you have mush for hearts."

I turn and raise one eyebrow at him, arms crossed over my chest. "For being about twenty-three _hundred_ years old, your puny single heart can be just as soft."

Before Jack can reply, we turn as one, on edge and battle-ready, when the door opens and a young man enters the private booth. Though he appears to be a stranger, the very fact he could enter means it's Harry.

"I'll never get used to the effect of a glamour," Jack mutters, relaxing against the back of the chair again. He props his booted feet on the edge of the table, the tails of his duffle coat falling back to reveal threadbare jeans.

Harry drags a hand over his face, murmuring a Latin phrase softly as he does. I've reminded him the Latin isn't necessary, but he always smiles sheepishly and says it's a habit he can't seem to break. The process drops his glamour, removing the image of a nondescript twenty-something and revealing Harry's naturally striking green eyes and midnight-black hair.

Between Jack's dark hair and Harry's, is it any wonder this regeneration ended up with dark hair again? I'll never be ginger. Then again, between my memories of Donna and Harry's memories of Ron, maybe never being ginger is a good thing.

Jack pushes a beer across the table to Harry, who slides into the seat next to Jack, dislodging his feet and starting a shoving match. I'm torn between chastising them and joining them, until Jack ends it by grasping Harry's shoulders and pulling him in for a kiss.

The sound of streamers and noisemakers below draws my attention from my companions. While it might be Halloween for us, it's New Year's Eve 1999 for the revelers in the bar. By a coincidence I had nothing to do with -- this time -- not only was I here as Nigel with Jack and Rose, but Harry was here with his lovers, Ron and Hermione, to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Hence our choice of voyeurism.

The dull thud of a bottle on a tabletop tells me Harry and Jack are no longer kissing. Not turning from the window, I ask, "Did you see them?"

"Yes," Harry answers. The scrape of a bottle against the table tells me he's drinking again.

I lay my palms flat against the glass, watching as Rose and Jack try to drag Nigel onto the dance floor. _Dance, you bastard,_ I yell in my head even as I remember not budging from my stool all night, resenting the humans for their hormones and ability to live in the moment.

"Where are they?" Harry doesn't keep post-Hogwarts pictures aboard the TARDIS, though the TARDIS would allow it. I think it has something to do with how Hermione died at the hands of an extremist group on Halloween several years after they disposed of Voldemort.

I sense him approach before I feel the heat of his body behind me. Where Jack is a few inches taller than me, Harry is the same height. He rests a hand at the small of my back, the heat of his palm feeling like a brand. With gentle pressure, he turns me from Nigel, Rose and the younger Jack, to our right.

Almost in the opposite corner is another trio, a group of two men and one woman. Harry, of course, is instantly recognizable to me. The tall and stocky redhead currently attempting to drag the buxom brunette onto the dance floor must be Ron while the brunette must be Hermione.

"I understand your attraction to big guys now," Jack teases softly. I hadn't heard him approach. Harry gives him a dark look, but I understand Jack's comment.

This has been my first regeneration in which my sexual orientation could be accurately described as _flexible_. I blame that on Jack's influence. Past regenerations have been open to experimentation, but in this body it honestly doesn't matter what gender my partner is -- and I'm much more focused on sex, though that could be because I'm so much closer to the end of my life, but this is not the time to be dwelling on that.

Looking down at Harry's former lovers, I understand the appeal of both of them.

"She was called the smartest witch of her generation," Harry says quietly. It has been more than one hundred years since Hermione's death, but I understand his lingering melancholy. He is getting better about confining his mood to the few days around Halloween, though.

Harry sighs and traces their outlines on the glass. "He was always underestimated, but I could never ask for a better man by my side."

Jack clears his throat. Harry says nothing. Jack clears it again. I have to resist the urge to smile. Harry's lips twitch and Jack catches the tell, hissing, "You can be a right bastard sometimes."

"You shouldn't try British slang in that terrible Yank accent," Harry replies mildly. Jack gestures rudely, which draws a full smile from Harry at last.

Being the youngest of us, and having lost Ron and Hermione so traumatically, Harry is still adjusting to the "whole immortality thing," as Jack puts it. Add to the fact his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, did a number on his head -- and is part of the reason he's immortal -- and it will take him several more years to come to terms with Halloween and its layered anniversaries. It's why I don't mind doing this for him.

I glance down at young Harry. Ron has managed to drag both Harry and Hermione onto the dance floor, and the two men have Hermione between them in a mid-tempo dance, Ron at her back and Harry at her front. One of Ron's hands is on Harry's shoulder, the other on Hermione's hip; Hermione has one hand extended upward behind Ron's neck and the other around Harry's waist slid down the back of his jeans; while Harry is resting his hands one each on Ron's and Hermione's hips. I envy them.

"We could have had that," Jack says.

I don't say anything. I know now we could have had that, but I was too broken at the time to see it. I look over at Rose and young Jack and see something I hadn't before: out of Nigel's line of sight, they're snogging the hell out of each other.

"Let's go," I murmur.

Jack follows my gaze. "It never went any further, you know." I glance sideways at him. His blue eyes are dark. "She wanted you, too."

Harry slides his hand from the small of my back around me entirely, pulling me around into a hug. The hug becomes less-than-chaste when he tangles his other hand into my hair and pulls me into a brief kiss. Foreheads together afterward, he looks into my eyes. I don't know what he's seen on the other side -- and I know his experience with death is very different than Jack's -- but there are times I look into Harry's eyes and feel like I'm drowning.

"We have a revolution to put down somewhere, don't we?" he murmurs against my lips.

"Or one to start," Jack adds with entirely too much glee.

Harry releases me. The three of us turn, each saying our goodbyes in our own way -- though I would very much prefer to slap myself upside the head -- before Harry releases the charm on the room, dropping the privacy wards. Sound invades the space once again, just in time for the countdown to midnight and the new millennium.

_Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . ._

My TARDIS is in the furthest, darkest corner of the alley next to the club under a Disillusionment charm. Nigel's TARDIS would still sense mine and my younger self might still be able to see it, but it would take a lot of effort and seeking out other versions of myself isn't something I generally make a habit of doing. Rose and younger Jack wouldn't see it at all, though their keys would still find it.

_Seven . . . six . . . five . . ._

Harry releases the Disillusionment charm as we enter, the sensation of walking _through_ the charm still one I'm not entirely comfortable with, nor is Jack given his shudder. Harry grins. Sometimes I think he makes those charms deliberately unpleasant.

_Four . . . three . . . two . . ._

"Where to, Doc?" Jack asks, dropping into the jump seat. He somehow manages to make even that negligent sprawl look sexy.

"Somewhere new," Harry requests. He points at random to the star field on the monitor. "There."

I grin.

_One._


End file.
